


Your Decision

by Kittycattycat



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types
Genre: Feelings, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Middle School, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Written as a request from a friend on vent!, it's Wednesday having uncomfortable feelings about romantic relationships, unsure how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 17:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21431995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittycattycat/pseuds/Kittycattycat
Summary: “I think Tommy is the cutest boy in class!” a girl's loud voice announced from the courtyard in front of her.Wednesday rolled her eyes. They were twelve. Why was this what they were all so obsessed with? She didn’t understand. Even still, something nagged at the back of her mind, itching like a centipede crawling along the insides of her skull.
Relationships: Morticia Addams & Wednesday Addams
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	Your Decision

“I think Tommy is the cutest boy in class!” a loud voice announced from the courtyard in front of her, interrupting Wednesday from her novel. She straightened her back up against the chain-link fence as her eyes darted up, automatically drawn to the source of the noise. A group of fellow classmates, all girls, had come together formed a tight ring just a few feet from her.

It was recess, which meant the others were free to run and play and yell in excitement as they pleased, but Wednesday had instead decided to immerse herself in her favorite book from the Addams Family Library— “Seventy-One Ways to Raise the Dead”— and proceeded to tune out the entire classroom until the gossip had started. She normally wouldn’t mind, but the girls were interrupting her reading time, and they were even choosing to do it while discussing a topic that Wednesday honestly cared little for. 

“He’s so handsome and smart,” the girl sighed dramatically, “but not too smart, which is good. You want that in a boy. Just smart enough to get a job and work for the household, but not smart enough to have one of those jobs that keeps them away from home all the time.”

“Plus they don’t act like know-it-alls when they’re just a little bit dumb, yknow!” another girl spoke up.

“Yeah!”

Wednesday rolled her eyes nearly into the back of her head. They were twelve. Why was this what they were all so obsessed with? She didn’t understand at all. Ducking her head, she went back to reading. Or at least, she tried. Something nagged at the back of her mind, itching like a centipede crawling along the insides of her skull. But the book took precedence, and so she ignored the feeling until eventually it gave way.

———

Wednesday couldn’t sleep.

She tried everything she could think of— listening to the things that went bump in the night, pacing around the room with all the lights off, piling increasingly heavy things on top of herself to crush her body into the mattress. She even tried drinking warm milk! But nothing worked. Sleep wasn’t coming.

With a huff, she tumbled in her sheets, flipping the pillow over to the cooler side again for what felt like the seventh time that night and finally flopping down facing the half-busted ceiling. The cracks in the old wood, formed by the ultimate and unstoppable annoyance that was her younger brother, were a familiar comfort in her time of stress.

She wanted to say she didn’t know what was wrong, she wanted to say her lack of sleep was a complete mystery, and that her mind was the inky black endless abyssal void it always was. That wasn’t true. She knew why she couldn’t rest, she just didn’t want to admit it. 

———

It was fairly rare that Wednesday managed to get any sort of failing grade, primarily because all of the classes seemed so simple and easy to her, even if her solutions to most problems were rather unorthodox compared to those of others’. However, Wednesday had continued to be absorbed with her book even after the end of recess and had ended up being distracted from math class that afternoon, meaning she’d failed the small quiz they’d been given at the end of the period.

This normally would have been fine and acceptable, if out of character for her, but the teacher for that specific class was a stern man with a permanently furrowed brow who held no tolerance for failure, and so about five minutes before the class ended, he had called her name and gestured for her to meet him outside in the hall.

Wednesday received the standard ‘you should know better than this’ lecture that she had heard other students receive so many times. This time, though, something stuck with her. 

“This is honestly very basic,” the teacher had told her, a tone of tired disappointment in his voice. “Wednesday, how will you ever provide for you and your husband if you don’t even know how to behave normally? How to learn?”

In that brief moment, deep within her torso cavity, protected by bones and layers of muscle and skin, her heart clenched. It was that word— husband— that had sent a strange sort of squirming sensation inside of her abdomen. It filled her with a sort of anxiety towards the future that she had never quite experienced to that specific degree. A familiar feeling, sure, but not exactly the same. A different brand, a different flavor of the normal, one not of fear but of sheer uncertainty. It was… discomfort. Discontent. It wasn’t the sort of comfortable creeping feeling over her whole body like an ice cube slowly crawling down her spine, it was a sick feeling rising from her stomach and spreading throughout her entire body.

‘Husband.’ Something seemed wrong with that.

Wednesday nodded to her teacher, promised to do better, and walked back inside the classroom.

———

Had she not been who she was, Wednesday would have jumped or been startled at the sudden knocking on her door that snapped her from the memory of it. However, being herself and being accustomed to such surprises, she simply sat up in bed and looked over towards the noise.

"Wednesday, dear? It’s nearly one in the morning and your candle is still lit. Are you quite alright?” she heard her mother’s voice ask gently from outside the door.

"No,” she responded. Being blunt and honest had always been an identifying trait of hers.

"Would you like to talk with me?”

"That would be fine."

Morticia quietly opened the door, stepping out of the dark hallway and into the eerie candle-lit glow of Wednesday’s bedroom. She took small steps over towards her daughter’s bed before taking a seat on the edge, hardly creasing the blankets. “Did something happen at school today? Someone say something nasty to you?”

Wednesday shook her head lightly, “No, mother. All of the other children say that I am weird, and scary, and creepy.”

Morticia smiled softly. “That’s absolutely wonderful, darling. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, mother.”

The smile on Morticia’s face slowly faded, “If the school children aren’t the problem, then what’s bothering you? Something around the house?”

Wednesday shook her head, “Nothing like that, mother. It’s just… some of the things the teachers have said are… upsetting me.”

Morticia frowned, a crease forming between her eyebrows. "What sorts of things have they said?”

Wednesday paused, unsure of how to continue the statement. “Nothing in particular, I suppose. It’s just… why does everyone assume that I’ll have a husband some day? Or get a… ‘boyfriend.’ All of my teachers and fellow classmates seem to think it’s something I’ll have to have.”

Laying her hands atop each other, Morticia looked at her with a comfortable expression. “…Would you prefer a girlfriend, or a wife?”

Wednesday paused. “…No. At least, not right now. I just don’t see the appeal to any of it. What if I never want to pursue a romantic relationship?”

Her mother shrugged, “Then that’s that. You don’t need someone to be your other half, Wednesday. You’re a whole, all on your own.”

“Mm, I suppose. But those other girls said…”

“How could those girls possibly know what you want and need in life?”

“I… don’t know. A mystic oracle, perhaps?”

“They couldn’t, dear,” Morticia said firmly. “There’s no possible way they could know what’s best for you. You need to follow your heart and your head, and do what you feel is right for yourself. No one can dictate your life for you, and you certainly don’t need any sort of man to fill a hole in yourself, least of all at this age.”

Wednesday contemplated for a moment, then cast her eyes up at her mother. “…I’m sure father would love to hear that.”

Morticia didn’t even try to hold back her laughter, mouth crinkling at the edges as she gave a warm, toothy smile, “He certainly would, wouldn't he?”

Loudly, a voice came from outside the door. “What are you guys talking about in there!? Are you talking about… me!?” 

“Pugsly…” Wednesday huffed, shaking her head lightly.

“Quiet down out there! …Your sister and I are having a conversation, Pugsly,” their mother said with as much sternness as she could have, which was quite a lot. Pugsly rattled the doorknob and poked his head in the room. “Go out back to bed, or play with your knives in your room if you must.”

Pugsly frowned petulantly, but abided, closing the door with a click behind him.

As Pugsly’s creaking footsteps echoed down the hall and away from the bedroom door, Morticia looked softly over at Wednesday.

“Just remember darling,” she murmured, cupping Wednesday’s face with a single cold hand, “You’re never alone in this world. I’m here for you— the family is here for you. You’re an Addams. Never let that fact be taken from you."

“Okay, mom,” Wednesday whispered back, a subtle smile ghosting her lips.

Morticia took a deep, calming breath and stood from the edge of the bed, giving Wednesday a kiss on the forehead as the latter tucked herself back into the sheets. On her way out, Morticia snuffed out the half-melted candle lighting the room before eventually sneaking back into bed with Gomez, and Wednesday drifted off to sleep for the first time that night— both of them resting until the sun rose high above the Addams family home.


End file.
